After several days of troubleshooting and around twenty reinstallations, here is what I've come up with:
The MOBO and CPU both support VT-d, but I had to disable it in the BIOS in order to get Qubes working.Explanation: If
VT-d is enabled in the BIOS, then installation of Qubes proceeds
normally up the last step (VM creation). At this stage, the user is
presented with three options. The first two options create some VMs,
while the third option creates no VMs (and leaves the user to do it
manually later). If either of the first two options is selected, the
system completely freezes when installation tries to create the netvm. A
hard reboot is necessary. If the third option is chosen (i.e., create
no VMs during installation), then the installation completes
successfully, and the user can log in. But the system again freezes as
soon as a netvm is manually created (with 'qvm-create --net --label red
netvm' in dom0), and again a hard reboot is required. (I tried pretty
much every possible combination of assigning different devices to the
netvm before starting it up, but the system keeps freezing. I also tried
updating (i.e., qubes-dom0-update), but no dice.)
Question/Hypothesis: Is
this happening because the new Haswell implementation of VT-d (if there
is such a thing) is not yet supported by the version of the Linux
kernel we're using? Or maybe it's not yet supported by (the version of)
Xen we're using? After all, this MOBO/CPU just came out in the last week
or so. Maybe I just need to wait for an update?
The CPU has integrated Intel HD 4600 (GT2) graphics, but I had to use a discrete GPU in order to install Qubes.Explanation: I
actually chose the Xeon E3-1245v3 over the E3-1230v3 because the former
has Intel graphics, and the HCL page recommends Intel graphics over
nVidia/AMD. But, as it turns out (in my case, at least), using an AMD
Radeon HD 5770 was necessary. At first, I tried installing Qubes with
just the MOBO and CPU (no discrete graphics, no other PCI/e devices of
any kind). This caused several errors during the installation, which I
have seen others mention (in different situations). The first major
thing that happened is that the graphical install failed (I believe it
said, 'X startup failed'), and it kicked back to an anaconda text-only
installation. I was able to select my options (time zone, storage device
target for installation, etc.), but then I received an error which
said, 'luks device has no key'. (I gathered from a post by Marek in an
old thread that this is probably due to shortcomings in anaconda.) The
installation could not proceed. So then I slotted in the Radeon HD 5770,
and everything was fine.
Question/Hypothesis: Same as
above. Maybe this is a kernel/Xen issue? I'm not personally worried
about it, as the HD 5770 is working fine, but this may be important to
others. By contrast, I really want VT-d to work.
Request for assistance: Is there anything else I can try to do to get VT-d working?
